uted. Hoddan went through a symbolic
duel, which was plainly the way the thing would have happened in
reality. Others came in and went through the same process. Two of them
did not quite grasp that it was a ritual, and he had to shoot them in
the knife arm. Then he hunted in the ship's supplies for ointment for
the blisters that would appear from stun-pistol bolts at such short
range. As he bandaged the places, he again tried to find out why the
Lady Fani had tried to get him carved up by the large-bladed knives all
Darthian gentlemen wore. Nobody could enlighten him.

But the atmosphere improved remarkably. Since each theoretic fight had
taken place in private, nobody was obliged to admit a compromise with
etiquette. Hoddan's followers ceased to brood. They developed huge
appetites. Those who had been aground on Krim told zestfully of the
monstrous hangovers they'd acquired there. It appeared that Hoddan was
revered for the size of the benders he enabled his followers to hang on.

But there remained the fact that the Lady Fani had tried to get him
massacred. He puzzled over it. The little yacht sped through space
toward Walden. He tried to think how he'd offended Fani. He could think
of nothing. He set to work on a new electronic setup which would make
still another modification of the Lawlor space-drive possible. In the
others, groups of electronic components were cut out and others
substituted in rather tricky fashion from the control board. This was
trickiest of all. It required the home-made vacuum tube to burn steadily
when in use. But it was a very simple idea. Lawlor drive and landing
grid force fields were formed by not dissimilar generators, and ball
lightning force fields were in the same general family of phenomena.
Suppose one made the field generator that had to be on a ship if it was
to drive at all, capable of all those allied, associated, similar force
fields? If a ship could make the fields that landing grids did, it
should be useful to pirates.

Hoddan's present errand was neither pure nor simple piracy, but piracy
it would be. The more he considered the obligation he'd taken on himself
when he helped the emigrant-fleet, the more he doubted that he could
lift it without long struggle. He was preparing to carry on that
struggle for a long time. He'd more or less resigned himself to the
postponement of his personal desires. Nedda, for example. He wasn't
quite sure-- Perhaps, after all--

*